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Chapter Text

She was alone at the main fire when Solas approached her, most of the others already in their tents.  The sun had only just gone down and the pale vestiges of light peeked through the trees that surrounded the camp.  Despite the hill they had chosen they were well hidden and the banner of the Inquisition was displayed proudly on the crest of the rise.  Not long ago that would have meant very little, but now both the conclaves of mages and templars had been wiped from the King’s Road even the hardened mercenaries that had, for some reason, taken up this eastern stretch of the Hinterlands didn’t mess with them unduly.  Still, she liked to sit on the side of the fire where her back was to the jutting wall of granite that protected them from the wind.  It meant she could see through the tress in front of them, shadows growing in the gloaming as the weak daylight gave way to darkness.  The fires of the Crossroads lit the valley in front of her in strange, eerie lights that still gave her shivers if she forgot where she was - she would never have got this close to so many shems before.

She smiled at Solas as he came to sit on the thick log the soldiers had brought into camp for them.  He sat at a respectful distance, but she could have reached to touch him if she wanted.  He also didn’t seem to want to talk immediately, so she went back to flicking through the notebook Varric had given her where she’d been taking notes on what they’d found during the day.  They may not have spoken all that much since the Breach but enough that she had noted his surprise in Haven when she had seemed curious and excited about his field of study.    He was less enthusiastic about her desire to stick up for her people in the face of his disdain.  So they carefully walked around each other, still unsure where the pot holes were.

“We are moving further east tomorrow, yes?” Solas asked, quietly.

“Yes, Scout Denver said there were bandits on the road.  No point getting Dennet to send all his horses if they’re just going to be picked off.”

“Indeed.  I wonder, then, if I might make a suggestion as to our activity?”

His tone made her look over - if she didn’t know him any better she’d say he sounded a little unsure.  His hands were relaxed in his lap save for the fact that one of his thumbs was idly moving over the other, almost bashful.  She closed her notebook.

“What sort of suggestion?”

He looked up and she took care to keep her expression neutral.

“If I am correct, I believe there may be an ancient elven artefact nearby here.”

“Oh?  What kind?  In a ruin?  I can’t imagine an intact ruin around here with so many shems.  What do you think it is?”

She had already figured out that Solas didn’t smile too much, but there was a tiny, unmistakable twist to his mouth where he was clearly trying not to.  “That is many questions I have just asked.”

“I seem to remember you telling me that finding ruins was something of a passion of yours, in your Clan.”

She didn’t want to talk about her Clan right now, they’d probably fight.

“Well yes, it was.  So what is it, do you think?”

“I believe it to be an ancient mechanism for interacting with the Veil between your world and the Fade.  If I am correct, activating such an artefact would strengthen the Veil in the surrounding area.  Which in turn…”

“…might make it harder for Rifts to form.”

Mouth still slightly open from speaking, he nodded instead.  “Well that would be amazing, if we could.  Do you think it would still work?”

“If the ruins are intact, which I believe they are, then yes.  We built to last, despite the ruined state of all that can be found of what is left.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“I’d come across them as I dreamed in ruins, ancient and undisturbed by modern hands - I did not see their use until the Breach.  But when I knew our path would bring us here I began to search in earnest.”

His face pinched slightly and he looked down at his hands.  “These demons threaten all that live around them.  Their anger and their fear have made them mad.  They can know nothing but destruction, now.”

Eli was quiet for a moment, the sad cadence to his voice sombre and quiet in the evening air.

“You said you’d come across ‘them’ before - does that mean there may be more than this one?  That if we could figure out how to make them work, we could protect the Veil in other places?”

He looked at her like she’d surprised him.

“Yes.  I imagine so.”

She nodded, something a little like hope blinking into light in her chest.

“Well that is more than worth researching - will you take us there tomorrow?”

Now he smiled, soft in the firelight. 

“I would be honoured to do so, Herald.”

She grimaced.

“Oh you were doing so well until ‘Herald’.”

“Ellana, then.”

“Better.”

She checked that he knew she was jesting with him before turning back to the fire and they settled into a comfortable silence.  If only for a moment.

“I shall turn in, I think.”

She felt him move beside her and felt something a little like panic.  She didn’t want him to go. 

“Oh um, Solas?”

“Yes?”

Think think think, wait.

“I was wondering if I could get a little help?  I know you showed me before, but I was looking at that last stanza of the Tyrrda epic today and I couldn’t quite work out your shorthand, could you just remind me of a few things?”

She looked up at him hopefully, praying her eagerness wasn’t too obvious in her face.  He looked down at her slightly warily for a moment before nodding and sitting again.

“I would not necessarily expect someone to decipher a whole shorthand in one session, which bit is troubling you?”

She (rather shamelessly, she thought) scooted up the log so that they could look at her notebook together.  If her hip and elbow bumped against his, well sometimes you had to make sacrifices for knowledge, didn’t you?

She turned a few of the thick pages until she came to the section she had reserved for Tyrrda.  She had painstakingly noted down the first stanza they had found, until Solas had offered to take down her dictation.  He had learned an ancient form of shorthand in the Fade, he said and had briefly taught Eli how it worked.  To be fair to her, she had genuinely been meaning to ask him about some of the more complex passages before this.

As they sat together, he gently took the charcoal she had been writing with into his own fingers to extrapolate on the symbols he’d used.  Eli had been meaning to listen, really she had, but no sooner had she noticed that his woollen jerkin smelt slightly of elfroot that she also saw that, in taking the charcoal, he had managed to get a smear of it on his fingers.  The black smudge on his pale skin fascinated her, the starkness of it highlighting how long and elegant those fingers were, how dextrous and delicately they moved as they sketched out words or pointed out similarities in pattern.  She rather wanted that hand on her, all of a sudden.

“Do you see the connection?”

She looked up from his inappropriately beautiful hand to see his face close to hers, eyebrows drawn slightly together in question.  She had no idea what he was asking her and he knew it.  Those brows furrowed further in irritation and he looked away, moving to pass the book back.  “If you did not want my help…”

“No, no no no, wait, I did.  I definitely did, I was just….distracted.”

“Distracted?”

She had never been able to raise one eyebrow and it was very unfair that he could.  By Sylaise’s generous bosom, she had always been bad at this bit.

“Yes, you um, you had charcoal on your hand.”

His irritation faded a little as he looked down at his own hand, now seeming merely non-plussed.

“That is wont to happen when using charcoal, yes.”

She nodded, as if in agreement and the irritation came back again.  “What in particular about my charcoaled fingers was so upsetting?”

Eli heard herself stuttering and felt her own hands clench together in front of her body.  He noticed, too and there was something vulnerable threading through his annoyance now.  “I was not about to dirty you with it, if that is what you were worrying about.”

Oh but I really want to you to dirty me with it, was the immediate thought that went through her mind (along with a vivid image of him using the broad palm of his hand to smear it over her naked stomach) and she only hoped she hadn’t said it out loud.  She hadn’t, she knew she hadn’t, but clearly her hesitation and something in her face had told him at least something.  She couldn’t exactly put her finger on what had changed physically in his expression, but whatever it was made something fizzing and hot in her stomach dip firmly between her legs and back again. “Unless, of course, my dirtying you was not the problem?”

His voice had become darker all of a sudden and neither of them moved for what felt like minutes, Eli acutely aware of the firelight dancing mischievous in his eyes and how very close his face was.  He in turn, kept very still except for those eyes, which darted down to where Eli knew her breathing had just sped up and back to her face.

One more moment of heat and the questioning intensity of his gaze, and then he leaned back, a shutter over his expression.  He coughed slightly and, to Eli’s horror, she promptly found it incredibly endearing.  “Evenings…are not always the best time to learn new things.  Perhaps we shall try again on a bright morning.”

Eli needed two tries to get her voice to work.

“Yes.  With coffee, that always seems to help.”

His smile was easy and insincere, but there was a gentleness to the way he laid the charcoal over the notebook and pressed them back into her lap.

“I will retire now.”

“Yes, of course.  I’ll be there in a momen…I mean, I’ll take some rest as well soon.”

He paused in getting up, something flashing across his face like a smirk before he turned away.

“Indeed, that would be wise.  Sleep well, Ellana.”

“You too, Solas” Eli replied, remembering just in time not to use the elvhen.  The first time she had wished one of her gods to look fondly on him he’d glared at her with such ferocity that, even in its briefness, she hadn’t forgotten it.

Instead she watched his back as he walked away, once again surprised by his height as he had to bend to enter the canvas tent.  Once she couldn’t see him any more she turned back to the fire and let out her breath in a long, slow exhale.  She watched the flames tremble in front of her as the air caressed them and then turned her eyes to the sky, where the stars twinkled through the leaves of the trees.  She wanted to believe that this was just because he was elven, that he was the most familiar thing that was around her so she was developing feelings that she couldn’t control, but it didn’t ring true to her.  She felt more emotionally akin to Varric and she didn’t get distracted by his hands (save for marvelling at the solidity of him).  Sera was an elf and, whilst they were playfully flirting with one another that was more because flirting was the safest thing they could do given Sera’s views on the Dalish.  Solas was one of the stranger things she had come across, but whilst she had idly wondered how sex with Bull would even work, it was not his strangeness that attracted her to him either.  Nor his scholarship, as proved by how badly Eli and Madame Vivienne got on.

He was dangerous, this lone elf. Then again, if Sera’s view on mages represented what most people in Thedas thought, so was Eli herself.  They were all dangerous in their own way, perhaps she just liked him.  She would need to be careful of herself, but she suspected he was going to be just as careful.

She rose from her seat by the fire and gave Scout Harding, who was watching the road beneath them on the far side of camp, a little wave goodnight before she headed to the tent.  Regardless of her feelings for him, if she could get these artefacts working like he said, she might actually be able to start feeling like she was making any sort of difference.

****************

She woke early the next morning, the cold brisk enough she had to fight with herself to stick her feet out of the blankets.  Dorian groaned gratefully into his own pillow when she told him not to get up yet, idly waving at her before tucking his hand back into his little cocoon.  She threw her blanket on top of his as she left and he grunted in what she decided was gratitude.  The morning air was fresh on her face as she left the tent and she outlined the plan for the day to Varric and Cassandra as they sat round the fire drinking hot coffee and munching on porridge with Harding’s local berry jam.  As Eli suspected it would, the potential for making it less likely for an innocent farmer to stumble unknowing in to a Terror demon perked the both of them right up.

She had time for a brief burst of embarrassment when she first met Solas’ eye, but he was as polite and distant as he had always been and honestly, what with everyone else milling around them, it was a relief. 

They geared up, Bull giving her tips on how to tell if these were real bandits or mercenaries whilst tightening the harness for her staff.  They took a moment to smirk at each other as Vivienne pointedly asked Solas if he had any notes on these artefacts for her to study or did he stick to his rustic roots and keep it all in his head?  The smirks turned to snickers as Solas politely informed her that he did indeed make notes, but in a language Vivienne would almost certainly not have lowered herself to learn.  Not good at being idle, Vivienne then promptly decided that she would visit the cult at Winterwatch and that Bull would accompany her.  At this, Blackwall stood from his position by the fire, wiping the last of his porridge off his beard.

“Perhaps I’ll come as well, my lady.  I’d like to see if any more of Berand’s men have turned up, the Commander as been asking after them.”

“I suggest taking Sera as well, Madame Vivienne,” Eli added, gently.  “These woods are teeming with bears and dogs, you could use a good bow at your back.”

Sera shot her a disgusted look and Eli shrugged, apologetic but unmoved.  The Dalish never travelled in groups of less than four if they could help it - all the better for dealing with unexpected shem hunting parties.  She saw no reason to change that habit now, not with everything happening as it was.

Her group set off first.  She still wasn’t quite used it, just setting off in the morning air free to go as she pleased without running into shemlen.  Demons, perhaps, but not shemlen.  The Hinterlands were beautiful, their muted mixture of greens, greys and browns laid over the rocky landscape like a blanket.  She loved how the lush, fertile arable land was always protected by hard rock or by water, so that the land itself seemed to hold the people that lived on it in its palm, safe.

They passed through the crossroads quite quickly.  Eli stuck close to Cassandra and let her reply to the inevitable hails from the refugees and the soldiers.  She still felt very uncomfortable being the centre of everyone’s attention.  She tried to be grateful that they were whispering behind their hands because they thought she was holy rather than preparing to lynch her because of her ears and tattoos, but it didn’t really help.  If Cassandra noticed, she didn’t say anything, for which Eli was very appreciative.  She would get used to it, she was sure that she would, but she didn’t have to be accustomed to everything straight away.

Beyond the crossroads was a steady if long hill up to the gate where Scout Denver had been on watch yesterday.  Almost as soon as they were through, Cassandra put out an armoured arm in Eli’s way.

“Look.  Bodies.”

She wasn’t wrong - a few hundred feet in front of them were three corpses littered with arrows and having bled from deep wounds Eli could see from even here.  They weren’t wearing armour.

“They were refugees.” she spat, making a sound of disgust.

“Which is weird given how many holes are in them.”  Varric added, a similar expression of distaste on his face.  “Speaking from experience, if you’re going for someone not wearing armour you need one arrow, possibly two if your aim’s off.  There’s a body there with five.”

“Scout Denver did suspect they were not mere bandits.”

“Damn right, Chuckles.  If that’s not a warning you can shave my chest and call me a nug.”

“A warning for what?” Eli asked, taking a step beyond Cassandra’s arm and trying to peer into the myriad of large boulders to no avail, there could be any number of things hiding in there.  She felt naked with shoes on, unable to feel the ground beneath her - she really had to start persuading Cassandra to let her go barefoot.  Casting a quick envious look at Solas’ pale toes landing gently on the rough mud of the track, she glanced up to his face to see wariness in his eyes and decided to loose her staff from her back.  He followed suit and there was a rough slide of metal against metal as Cassandra freed her sword from its scabbard.  Varric swore under his breath and the strange clicking of Bianca readying herself followed.

They moved forward along the road, steady but wary.  Eli herself strode forward, not to be cowed by cowardly shemlen sneaking around and killing innocent people.   They passed the bodies quickly, a brief once-over by Varric telling them nothing other than what Scout Denver had reported - whatever equipment the mercenaries were using, it was quality.

As they approached a jutting outcrop of rock, lined on their left by a steep ridge covered by trees and the right by a sloping hill littered with bits of cliff, Eli caught the first sight of movement.  One to her right, suddenly another to her left, then more, like stars twinkling out of cloud.  She shared a quick look with Cassandra, enough to send her off into the main group on the right and then the Seeker’s metal mass was charging past her, shield raised and voice clanging through the quiet morning air loud enough to make Eli’s bones shake.

“Take the flankers.” she ordered steadily, feeling the air chill beside her as Solas drew every bit of moisture in the air to his hands.  The nearest flanker had enough time to bark out in pain before ice covered his face, Eli already feeling the caress of flame in her palm as she aimed her staff level at the other, who had leapt out of the way as soon as he had seen the ice form, screeching at the others that there were mages.  A quick break in the stride of her rhythm and the panicked screams of one of Cassandra’s assailants indicated that Eli had indeed set his entire jerkin on fire.  Then it was the ebbing flow of battle, low burn in her arms from wielding her staff, quick bursts of flame, eyes scanning the battlefield to respond best to her allies.  The two men trying to flank them were dead quickly and she and Solas turned back to Cassandra just in time to see a bolt from Bianca hurl a man about to strike their Seeker in the back far enough he cracked his head on a boulder.

The men and women were well trained and well armoured - as soon as it became clear the mages were in the fray three of them split off from the group of seven attacking them and started circling round Cassandra’s whirling, slamming, one-woman-army towards them.  Eli let the fire loose, trusting that Cassandra’s armour was good enough to take any stray flames that came her way.  After a few moments she noticed, suddenly, that of the three mercenaries that had been coming towards them she could now only see two.  After a quick assessment of the rest of the fight, she cast her right arm out past Solas’ chest, bumped it once so he noticed, and felt the settling readiness of the flames lying eager in the soil just to their right.  Something clicked into place low in her stomach a few seconds later, the fire leaving her and sinking into the ground, ready and waiting.  Solas grunted, whether in acknowledgement or approval she didn’t know.  At this point she just wanted to make sure he didn’t blow the both of them up by treading where he shouldn’t.

The tide was beginning to slip into their favour.  Cassandra was a bulwark, engaging with shield and sword - breathtaking to look at.  A shield deflected one blow where a sword slashed out at the calf of a man stupid enough to try and disengage.  That same sword came seamlessly up to parry a downward swing as the shield hit the face of the other attacker so hard Eli saw her nose erupt in blood.  Two of the mercenaries who had planned to come for the mages had turned back, clearly deciding Cassandra was the greater threat.  Eli couldn’t blame them.

Every time the shimmer around Cassandra faded Eli felt an tug in the air from beside her and watched as Solas drew particles of the Fade down through the air around Cassandra to land gently on her skin and turn away any blade that had the audacity to come into contact with it.  She had never seen someone lay a barrier with such accuracy before, such grace, like drawing on the Fade was as easy for him as breathing.  Perhaps it wasn’t just his hands she admired.

Varric’s shout of pain cut through the battlefield like a knife to her gut.  It was raw with that indescribable undertone that told every living thing in earshot that there was something deeply wrong and, content that Cassandra was fine, Eli looked over to see twin daggers retreating from either side of his neck.  That fucking knife-wielder had bypassed her and Solas and gone straight for the dwarf, taking him by surprise in the back.  Varric crumpled, Bianca getting stuck bolt-first in the ground so he fell awkwardly, half sideways.  With a desperate noise she lurched forward only to find Solas’ arm at her stomach.  She nearly punched him for getting in the way.

“Wait.”

She watched, wary of others, gasping as the air around him pulled into his body, nearly bringing her off-balance into him this time.  His arms drew forward, fingers pulling upwards through the air like he was lifting soil from the ground and fadelight erupted around Varric, two spots of it pulsing at the wounds on his neck.  His body rose like someone had taken hold of his glorious chest hair and was pulling upwards.  Solas muttered something in elvhen, grunted with effort she felt more than she heard and she watched as Varric’s eyes and mouth opened like he was gasping, the green, like ghostly fire, pouring from his eyes and mouth.  Something like wings scooped up under his body, pushing down like they moved through treacle to right him before setting him down on his feet.  As Solas breathed out, the cords of his muscles relaxing, the light faded and it was Varric standing there, a brief second of surprise on his face before it hardened.

The mercenary was still there, too.

Eli had enough time to see Varric swing around, Bianca in hand, before the mercenary shouted in rage and simply swung backwards with one of his blades, directly against Varric’s unprotected chest.  Blood swept over his fine silk shirt almost immediately and Varric only had enough in him to swing Bianca up and catch the bastard in the chin before he staggered to his knees.

“Varric!”

Fear tight in her stomach, she was about to run to him all over again, but this time Solas’ rigid arm hit her hard enough in the stomach he nearly knocked the breath out of her, his hand tight and bruising around her arm.  There was something of a growl in his voice and his face was white with what she realised quickly was rage.

“I have him.  Look to Cassandra.”

“But…”

“I have him!”

She took him at his word, a little shaken, pulling a barrier of her own down onto Cassandra and beginning to pick off her targets one by one.  She kept glancing over at where Solas had run, ready to help him, but he had moved fast enough the mercenary was still peering over Varric’s body trying to work out if he was really dead this time when Solas reached him.  The heavy end of Solas’ staff hit hard and accurate directly at the man’s temple and he fell to the ground like a rag doll that had just had its strings cut.  Solas was already kneeling to tend to Varric, something breathtakingly dismissive in how he reached back without looking to cover the man’s face with his hand.  The shem’s body jerked once, twice, and then blood and ice burst from his eyes over those pale fingers.  Solas didn’t even miss a beat as the man died, bringing his bloodied hand back around him to pull Varric’s shirt away from the wound.

They needed to finish this fight.  With both Solas and Varric out of action, it was more difficult to manoeuvre around the remaining mercenaries but, confident that if Solas couldn’t save Varric no one could, Eli moved closer to Cassandra.  She jumped to the top of a nearby outcrop of rock and rained fire against them all, until Cassandra lopped the head off the shoulders of the last man with a cry and it was done.

The moment he fell to the ground Eli was running, stabbing the sharp end of her staff into the mud as she slid to her knees beside Varric’s head.  She took in his condition quickly, well trained under her Keeper, and to her immense relief Solas had him stable, but he was yet to stitch the wound together.

“Can I help?”

“No.”

Solas’ voice was curt and quiet, but there was a tremor of fury in it that made her sit back slightly, despite herself.  She heard Cassandra coming up behind her.

“Will he be alright?”

Eli nodded, glad to see some tension around Cassandra’s eyes release.  She cared for him after all.

“I need this out of my way.”

It was Cassandra who stepped forward, grasping Bianca and heaving her out of the ground with a grunt of effort.

“How does he carry this thing around all the time?”

“She probably weighs less for him.”

Cassandra shot Eli a look that told her exactly what she thought of that comment, but she placed Bianca down on the grass with surprising care. 

“I will search the bodies and keep watch.  Perhaps there will be something on them to tell us why they are here.”

Eli nodded and turned back to the men.  Solas’ hand was passing slowly over the gash in Varric’s chest now, skin knitting together under the glow of his palm.  There was gore smeared over his knuckles from whatever had spurted from the dead man’s eyeballs, vivid and brutal.  Varric’s face was still and very pale beside her knees and she instinctively reached out to brush the hair from his face.

“I said I did not need help.”

“And I heard you, don’t snap at me.  I just want to get his hair out of the way.  I won’t do anything.”

Solas grunted and Eli muttered a curse under her breath.  She had long taught the members of her Clan not to speak to her like that, she wasn’t used to it. 

Varric’s red hair was dank with sweat as she lifted it from his face, her fingers lingering to smooth over the stubble on his cheeks.  Such a strange sensation.

In the end she kept watch whilst idly stroking the hair at the Varric’s temple, until Solas sat back on his heels with a long breath and whatever magic he was using fizzed away from the air like a breath of wind.  Varric coughed under her hand and she leant down, legs tucked under he, so that she could see his eyes as he woke.  It took them no time at all to focus, which was good, so she grinned at him.

“Welcome back, Varric.”

He groaned (rather theatrically, she thought) and gingerly stretched beside her, clearly feeling for anything broken.  One hand lifted to press at the crook of his neck, prodding at it until he looked, rather incredulously, up at Eli.  She smiled, shaking her head and looking over at Solas.  Varric huffed a laugh.

“Maker’s balls, Chuckles.  No one’s pulled me out of death’s ass that fast since Blondie.  And even that was only when he was glowing.”

“Oh there was quite a lot of glowing.”

“Chuckles glowed?”

“No!  You did.”

“I did?”

“Yup.  Wings and everything.”

“Ugh.  Damn spirit healers.”

“Perhaps you would have preferred it had I not.”

Solas’ voice was tight and harsh after their playful banter and it actually took Varric by surprise, a flash of shock making him look very vulnerable as he lay prone on the ground.  Eli felt her lip curl again.

“Of course he wouldn’t have preferred it, that’s not what he meant.  You’re just looking for something to be angry at.”

She didn’t flinch this time as the full force of Solas’ glare turned to her.  “You just saved his life.  Twice.  I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”

Solas took a breath as if to argue, then let it out without doing so.  He looked away from her, looking strangely ashamed.

“It should not have had to be twice.”

The fury had gone from his voice, leaving it just quiet and clearly humiliated.  Eli and Varric looked down at one another, equally taken by surprise apparently.

“Chuckles, don’t sweat it.  It’s not as if grasping a man by his short and curlies and pulling him from the brink of death isn’t going to be flashy.  And, speaking from experience, I felt those daggers go in.  I had minutes, if that.  You had no time.”

Solas was quiet for a moment, then took a deep breath, ceding the point with a dip of his head to Varric, but still not looking at either of them.

“Perhaps not.  Still, it could have been done better.  Can you stand?”

It was clear that the conversation was over - he rose from kneeling in one graceful movement, holding out his hand.  Varric shot him one more suspicious look before reaching for it, allowing Solas to help him sit, gently and then stand, Eli pushing Varric’s other elbow up from the floor.

“Thanks.  Just give me a moment then I’ll be fine.  Where’s Bianca?”

She couldn’t help but smile.

“Over on the rock.  Cassandra put her there.”

“The Seeker?  Cassandra I hope you were polite with my lady!”

Eli let Cassandra’s disgusted sound led the two of them into gentle bickering again, before standing herself and retrieving her staff.  Solas was standing next to her, leaning slightly on his own and watching Varric with an expression she couldn’t place.  He tensed as she approached, clearly wary.

“I haven’t seen that done before.”

“The revival?”

“No, that I’ve seen, though nowhere near so impressive.  I meant the shem.”

He looked at her, confused, until he clearly remembered that he’d frozen a man’s brain to death and looked behind him.

“Ah.  Yes.”

“Don’t tell me you learnt that in the Fade?”

“No.”

She waited for a moment for him to elaborate.  He didn’t.  Fine.

Cassandra was searching the bodies and Eli moved over to join her, rolling her shoulders and shaking out her arms from the exertion of battle.  There was a smell of charred flesh here and she was glad it was a good long time until lunch.

“Anything?”

Cassandra stood from where she had been crouching over a woman whose face was just a mess of blood and broken nose.

“Another letter saying to keep people away.  This one has the name of a camp, however.”

“Is it somewhere around here, perhaps, given the warning sign by the gate?”

“Indeed.  Will we investigate?”

“I think we have to.  If they’re really serious about warning people away then more travellers are going to be killed just to make a point.”

“You disapprove.”

“The Dalish don’t have the luxury of being wasteful with life.”

Cassandra nodded, looking over Eli’s shoulder.

“Are you gentlemen done?”

“Nothing a good bath and a better masseuse won’t fix, Seeker.”

“I am ecstatic to hear it.”

“You wound me.”

“Unlikely.”

Solas tutted in annoyance and turned to Eli.

“Where next, Inquisitor?”

“Cassandra?”

“The place the letter mentions is further east along the road, whether we go there now or look for your….”

She was cut off by a distant cry of fear from somewhere south of them, up the rocky slope past where they could see.  As they listened, the cry came again, angrier and it was followed by a hollow, undulating call that sent goosebumps down Eli’s arms and a blossom of fear in her gut.  Shade.

They all moved off simultaneously, pushing steadily up the rise to the right of the path.  Cassandra, eyes hard and ready, lifted a bottle from her pouch and chugged it without breaking a stride, handing another back to Varric.  Eli joined Solas in hopping up onto the boulders and using them as stepping stones, leaping lightly from one to another until they reached the brow of the hill and entered into a shallow copse of trees.  As they paused, scouting and waiting for the others, she scanned the area behind the trunks and saw merely a brief strip of land before a sheer cliff.  She had just enough time to recognise that the boulders there were larger and more shaped - ruins then - before she caught sight of the sickly brown, slithering form of the shade, slipping like oil around a chunk of masonry and followed by a small figure wielding a staff pulsing with crackling lightning.  One glimpse of her face, pale and flashing in the light of her own magic, and Eli was momentarily stunned into stillness, hearing an irritated sigh from beside her with a growing sense of dread.

The woman was Dalish.

Chapter Text

The fadebolt took the Dalish woman directly in her chest and she staggered to the ground, curling in on herself as clouds of eerie green light suffused her body.  The wraith had circled round a broken archway and taken advantage of her focus on the shade to catch her unawares. Despite his obvious disdain, Solas’ reaction was lightning quick and Eli’s ears popped as the air around the fallen figure pooled like someone had dropped a stone in a still pond.  The clouds around the woman faded, although she flinched like someone had struck her.  Eli herself flung out her hand towards the wraith and watched the flames erupt in its body, sending it howling towards the cliff.  The shade, it’s prey now tripled, turned towards them and then back to the Dalish woman, clearly unsure of where to go next.  A bolt from Bianca ripped a hole in its fleshy chest and lodged itself with a metallic clang in the soft stone of the ruins behind it and Eli had just enough time to grin in elation at their friends’ arrival before Cassandra was launching herself over the rise of the hill.  Her shield slammed into the shade’s gormless face hard enough to rock it back against the stone and it fell limp to the floor.  Eli set the ground and stone violently on fire before Cassandra got too close to it, then turned to the wraith.  Tender already from her flames, she caught the moment of its death as Varric sent another bolt, hard and unflinching, deep into where its face should be, helped to it by Solas’ having frozen Eli’s fire inside it.  It screamed, tearing at where the arrow was lodged unnaturally where its face should be, consumed a moment later by what remained of Eli’s fire.

“Herald!”

Cassandra’s shout came after a loud grunt of pain and Eli turned to see her down on one knee, tendrils of electricity grounding down her body to her feet.  The shade was struggling up and so was the Dalish woman, her face tensed in a grimace of pain and rage as she laboriously raised her staff to strike Cassandra again.

“Atish’an, lethallan!  We are not your enemy!” Eli cried, reaching up to pull her hood down off her head.  The woman looked over, startled by hearing her language, and Eli noted how the sun glinted in pale green eyes, watching her take in the tattoos on Eli’s face.  “She is with me - she will not hurt you!”

The shade’s dying call had them both looking over to Cassandra, who stood from dealing the killing blow and turned straight back to the woman.

“Are there any more?”

Sympathy clenched in Eli’s gut as the woman said nothing, her body tense and ready for flight.  It hadn’t been long since she herself had looked at Cassandra that way, too.

“I do not think there are more, Seeker.” Solas said from beside her.  “Certainly none that I can sense.”

Eli relaxed, hopping over the last of the boulders and onto the soft grass where the woman lay.

“Are you hurt?”

“She is a templar.”

“No, she is not.  I know she looks like one.  She’s with me.”

“She called you ‘Herald’.”

Eli watched her push herself to sitting and then to standing, leaning heavily on her staff, nerves blooming in her stomach. When the woman, younger than Eli had first thought, turned her pale eyes on her again she almost felt like squirming, shame rising to bloom in her cheeks.

“Yes.  She did.”

“As in ‘Herald of Andraste’?  I have heard that one of our own has been given such a name by the shemlen.”

“Yes.  That is me.  I am Ellana, of Clan Lavellan.”

“Andaran atish’an, then.  I will admit, I wasn’t expecting to find another of Dalish blood here.  My name is Mihris.”

Eli smiled, the nerves dissipating.  Mihris had a lilt to her voice she had missed dearly, for all that Solas had a similar hint to his own accent.  She spared her companions a glance, but they seemed content to hold back.  When Eli looked back around, Mihris caught her eye.  “I have attacked one of your acquaintances then?”

“Well, yes you did.”

“You consider her such?”

“I consider her a friend, actually.  Despite how we disagree sometimes.”

That brought the young woman’s eyebrows up as well as Cassandra’s.

“Well, shemlen.  I hope you can accept my apologies.  You look very like a templar like that.”

“I am not a templar, though I do not contest the confusion.  I am also aware that you are quite right to be wary of templars, mage as you are.  Particularly now.  Your apology is accepted.”

Mihris bowed her head and turned back to Eli.  Whatever regret she apparently had for Cassandra had already dissipated.

“I see by your weapons you come ready for battle - perhaps we find a common enemy in these demons?”

Eli lifted her staff behind her and began to strap it to her harness.

“Are you fighting the demons on your own?”

Mihris made a disgusted noise.

“There is little use fighting demons when there will always be more and I have no way to close the rifts…”

She trailed off, head cocked at Eli, who nodded.  “Amazing.  Regardless, I’ve heard of elven artefacts that measure the veil - finding them could help predict where they may form, I thought.  There is supposed to be one nearby, but I wasn’t expecting so many demons.”

Eli laughed a little, ignoring Solas’ pointed look.

“Actually that’s why we’re here as well - my friend Solas has also heard of these artefacts.”

Mihris glanced over at him and something uncomfortable shifted across her face before she turned back.

“Oh.  Well I believe one to be just inside these ruins.  Could you help me reach it?”

“We can reach it together - if it works we think there may be more of them we can use.”

“And we’re pretty damn good at killing demons, so definitely able to help you there.”

Mihris looked over at Varric, her beautiful eyes opening a little in wonder as she leant close to Eli, voice a whisper.

“Is that a dwarf from Orzammar, or….”

Eli laughed again, but pointedly raised her voice so Varric could hear them.

“Varric is from Kirkwall, lethallan.  You should hear him complain when we take him anywhere near a cave.”

“Hey, not all dwarves like the feeling of tonnes of rock over their head.  That’s just common sense.  Varric Tethras, by the way.  A pleasure.”

Eli let them introduce themselves, oddly tense.  Only perhaps not so oddly, given what she suspected about Solas’ views.  It did not help that Mihris’ greeting to him was as terse as his curt nod in reply.  Wonderful.

They took a few moments to take some water and pat themselves down after the fight with the mercenaries, although it was clear Varric’s shirt and coat were utterly ruined, a fact he was happy to point out, loudly.  Solas kept separate, sipping at his canteen and watching Mihris warily.  She also seemed glad for the break and came to sit, obviously and easily, next to Eli.  For a moment Eli just revelled in the smell of halla leather and elfroot, of slightly sweat-tinged ironbark armour and the natural, earthy tang in the air that was Mihris’ magic.  It was almost too much, too brief and sharp a picture of home when she had resigned herself to not seeing or feeling it again for a very long time.  It wasn’t easy, being away from her Clan.  Curious, she asked Mihris where hers was and watched her grow suddenly nervous, looking away from her.

“I was…am…First of Clan Virnhen.”

“Virnhen?  Didn’t one of your hunters win at archery at the last Arlathvhen?”

The joy and recognition Eli hoped for didn’t come, only the slightest flinch.

“I don’t really…hunting has never been something that interested me.  Anyway, I was away on business for my Clan out here and saw the great tear in the Veil.  I had learned about these artefacts before and certainly know more about the veil than any shemlen, so I thought I’d try to help, that’s all.”

“Ma harel, dal’en.”

Solas’ voice was quiet, but there was a note of steel to it that reminded Eli forcefully of Keeper Ista when she was disapproving of something Eli had done.  Mihris’ head jerked up at him, shock on her face before something ugly crossed over it like a shadow and she bowed her head, closing her eyes.  Eli took in the suddenly hunched shoulders, the lines across the young woman’s face and gently put an arm around her.  Mihris drew her body into herself for one more moment before letting it go, her voice barely a whisper.

“They were all killed. By…by a demon our Keeper was foolish enough to summon.”

She got up and there was rage in her face where there had been grief before.  “I am all that remains of Clan Virnehn.  I was searching for a Clan to take me in when the Breach appeared.  I just want to help!”

She was humiliated, this much was obvious.  That her humiliation was transforming to rage so quickly set off old warnings in Eli’s memory, all with Keeper Ista’s voice.  She knew Cassandra would have noted the pulses of magic at Mihris’ clenched fists, just barely contained from bursting into her element of choice in her anger.  So she stood, remaining slow and calm, gently placing her hands on Mihris’ shoulders, though she kept their bodies apart.

“I am so sorry, Mihris.  Truly I am.  I know what it is to have a Clan, the idea of losing it is almost too much to bear.”

“And yet here you are, with shemlen and a new Clan.” Mihris spat, pulling away.  “I did not ask for your sympathy, Ellana.  I did, however, ask for your help in finding something that will set this right.  If the shemlen cannot clear up their own mess, then perhaps it is up to the People to do so.”

Eli didn’t argue with her and held up her hand to stop Cassandra from where she had taken breath to speak.  This was neither the time nor the place.

“And we will help, Mihris.  Do not be angry with us.  Come, you said it was this way?”

Mihris looked at her a little guiltily as she caught up with her, but Eli just smiled and shrugged.  She hadn’t really expected another Clan to be nearby, but it hurt her to see what losing one could do to someone.  Keeper Ista would be proud of her, putting her own pain to one side to be wary for a mage pushed a little too close to the edge.  She could feel no corruption there, but she had found the woman fighting demons and only hoped that the folly of Virnehn’s Keeper (Thalrinn?  Thelhen?  June’s wooden codpiece but she’d alway been awful with names) was keeping Mihris well away from summoning demons of her own.

They walked together in a slightly stilted silence.  Eli didn’t want to contemplate what looks were passing between Varric and Cassandra.  Wanted to contemplate even less Solas’ thoughts. 

The path wound between broken pieces of arches, walls - there was even what looked like an old gargoyle worn with age to almost nothing.  She wished she had time to sit and sketch them, despite her extremely dubious art skills. Perhaps she could get Solas to draw them for her once they’d found the artefact.

“Thank you for accompanying me, Ellana.” Mihris suddenly said beside her, quietly.  Eli reached between them and took her hand, holding on gently as the woman tensed and then decided to relax, threading their fingers together to give Eli’s hand a tentative squeeze before letting it go.  The pain of loss was still very raw then, to be so averse to simple physical affection.  Still, the squeeze suggested she wanted out of this pain, perhaps even saw a path to that end.  Eli hoped so.

The trail ended in a short bend that led through two arches that were still standing.  It made Eli smile, gently trailing a hand up the loose stones and letting the dust coat her palm.  She loved old things.  The path led to what had clearly been an entrance into some kind of structure built into the cliff, but something had caused either the cliff above or the building in front of it to collapse, rendering the entrance useless.  They approached it gingerly, but it seemed like the cliff was safe.

“That’s going to be a pain in the ass to lift out, that boulder’s larger than Cassandra.”

Cassandra kicked Varric gently in response.  He was right, though - unless they could find some way to move the rubble they had come here for nothing.  Eli had occasionally been known to try and move things like this with magic, but she didn’t know if she could manage something of this size.  Mihris, kicking the stone with barely contained frustration, had clearly come to the same conclusion, snarling a little and turning back to them. 

“All this is for naught if we don’t shift this now.  A focus of magical energies should be able to move the stones.”  To Eli’s surprise, she then turned to Solas, something hard and arrogant in the curl of her lip.  “You, flat-ear - can you manage it?”

The slur shocked Eli enough to still her for a moment, shame and rage buzzing down her arms to the tips of her fingertips in readiness for the fight to come.

Only there wasn’t one.  To her relief and dismay all in one, Solas said nothing but came forward gently and raised his hands, blue tendrils of flame caressing his arms before reaching out to the stones like a lover, wrapping around them and gently lifting them.  It was only when they had settled that Eli realised that he had formed them back to their original position as the main archway of the entrance.  It looked effortless, like it had cost him nothing.  Rage settled her mouth into a hard line and she was about to turn to Mihris when Solas’ hand reached for his staff behind him.

“Demons.”

Cassandra darted forward, sword drawn, the minimum amount of time possible with Solas standing unprotected.  The rest of them followed, Varric and Mihris tucking into the corners of the rectangular entrance-hall whilst Eli and Solas flanked the door.  The shade and its wraiths were thin and papery in comparison to those they had found outside.  What with Mihris’ additional bursts of lightning, harsh and unforgiving, they were felled quickly and without too much problem.  Eli breathed to calm herself and then turned to Mihris, who had already started forward.  She stood in front of her, butt of her staff on the ground, making it clear she was not about to move.  Irritation flickered over Mihris’ face and Eli leant close so she could almost feel the young woman’s breath on her cheeks.

“What are you….”

“We do not use that term in my Clan, Mihris.” Eli said, her voice low and strong.  “We believe it gives those who are not of the Dalish the impression that we think they are lesser than we are simply because of their choices.  Which we do not.  I am not here to question the tradition of your Clan, that is not my place.  But you are not with your Clan here.  And I will not hear it spoken in my presence again.  Are we clear?”

Mihris’ eyes had gone wide, the slanted sunlight casting her face in strange shadows.  She was frozen for a moment, eyes darting to where Eli assumed Solas was and then back to her.  Then she nodded. Eli nodded once in return and then turned away, walking away from the light and into the gloom at the back of the hallway.  She had to pass Solas to do so and could see him watching her, could imagine the affronted downward curve of his eyebrows so clearly in her mind that she put out a hand to stop him the second she saw his chest lift in breath to speak.  “I know.  You did not ask me to protect your honour.  If it makes you feel better, think of it as a philosophical difference between two foolish Dalish, nothing to do with you at all.”

He didn’t move as she passed him, heading for a large metal chest at the back and setting down her staff next to it as she crouched to try and heave it open.  Anything to keep herself busy at this moment, the silence from behind her was deafening.

“That is not what I was going to say.”

His voice was quiet and close.

“Well what were you going to say, then?”

“I…am unsure, now.  Have you found anything of interest?”

She closed the lid with a clang.

“Not really.”

She stood and cast her eyes around.  There were two empty entryways leading to stairs into the darkness of the ruin, nothing more.  Whatever statue had welcomed in visitors was long worn, so far gone she had no idea what it had once tried to be.  It was often such in these places.  Feeling something tickling at the back of her mind where her magic lay, she looked around again, feeling drawn to a metal lantern hung on the wall next to the arch that led to one of the staircases.  There was something cold about it and strangely familiar.

“Solas?”

“Yes?”

“That lantern.  It feels a little like that one that you found near the first base camp out of Haven.”

“Oh?”

He came over and studied it for a moment before looking at her, slightly surprised.  “You are correct, it is of the same category of object.  Although this is far older.  You could try to light it with a normal flame and it never would.”

There was something in his face that told Eli there was more and she played to it, glad to be doing something other than fighting with her own kind.

“But….”

He took the bait.  Of course he did.

“But a magical fire may do it.”

“Can you light it?”

“I think perhaps that should be your honour.”

“I don’t know how.  Let me watch you?”

“Hm.  Very well.  Come.”

She pulled closer to him, just by his left shoulder.

“Which bit of you should I watch?”

She felt him hesitate slightly as he raised his arm and could have sworn she saw a brief flash of a smile on his shadowed face.

“…my hand.”

Oh.  So he did remember last night then.  She watched him raise his arm, his fingers curling and rotating like he was gently scooping up the fire from a pool.  She felt the tendrils of it echo up to his shoulder, merging with whatever magic he held and returning back to the lantern, laden with the essence of him intense enough she could almost feel it through the cotton of her shirt.  A beautiful, cool blue flame leapt from the base, burning bright and fierce.  It was entrancing and she beamed up at him in delight, a small smile on his face as he looked down at her.

“That is not ordinary fire.” Varric pointed out helpfully from behind them.  Solas rolled his eyes.

“I have not seen it before outside of the Fade, though I have heard of it.  It is called veilfire - a sort of sympathetic magic.  A memory of flame in this world that burns where the Veil is thin.”

Eli idly wondered if he would mind her telling him she could listen him talk about magic for a whole day at a time.  He probably would.  Mihris was coming up to the fire, reaching out with her hand.

“Does it burn like normal fire?  It does not feel hot.”

“No,” Solas replied, gently lifting his hand to stop hers without looking at her.  “And neither would you feel the burn until it is too late.”

He turned to look at Eli and she suddenly felt strangely proud, like when she and Darrel had been competing for Keeper Ista’s favour as young students.  “Veilfire does not obey normal laws, but now that it is kindled, it can be manipulated.  Take it.”

“What?  How?”

“Open yourself to the memory it holds.  Take it.”

The persuasive whisper of his voice made her grin in excitement and she reached out to the flame, doing as he suggested.  With a small gasp of surprise she felt the fire respond and her hand naturally begin to curl around something unseen.  Letting the fire lead her, she found herself grasping what came into being as some kind of torch, the veilfire burning bright from the top of it like she’d held a normal torch up to a standard flame.  Strange carvings and markings curled from her fingers to the flame and back again, some not-quite real metal holding the veilfire in a basin at the top.

“It remembers being lit like this,” she asked, slightly breathlessly, “So now it can be?”

“Precisely.  Technically any one of us could do it, though the technique needed is now more often associated with a mage.”

“So what - we’re taking the magic fire with us now?” Varric asked.  Eli grinned at him.

“Oh yes.” she replied, turning back to Solas.  “Although, I feel you are probably the one who will know best where it needs to be.”

He nodded and reached out to where she held the torch.  If her skin tingled from where their fingers brushed over one another, then that was clearly just another side effect of the magic.  If he caught her eye as he drew the torch gently away from her, well that just meant he had noticed this definitely magical side effect, too.

“Which way?” Cassandra asked, ever practical.

They all looked to Mihris, who sneered a little and looked pointedly at Solas.

“It seems your friend here has more knowledge of these places than I.”

Eli forced a laugh, trying to make it sound empathetic as she smiled.

“Do not fret, Mihris.  Solas tends to know a lot more than we do about most things to do with magic and the Fade.  One gets used to it.”

Mihris’ face softened slightly and by the time she turned again to Solas Eli was relatively sure she was genuinely asking his opinion, even if only for politeness.  That is all she required, for now.  Solas, rather pointedly if Eli was any judge, cleared his throat.

“I cannot claim knowledge of every elven ruin, but if I am correct then this is quite a standard layout.  The two paths should converge at a lower hallway.”

“So it does not matter?  I suggest this way then.” Cassandra said, striding forward to aim for the steps next to the lantern, ensuring she got there before Eli could go down first herself.  They had had words about this after the last ruin they had explored where Eli had gaily trotted down a darkened staircase into the rather surprised arms of a hardened mercenary.  Apparently Cassandra had deemed this behaviour ‘rash’ and ‘unwise’.  Eli had attempted to disagree until Sera had started doing impressions of the noise Eli had made when attempting to extricate herself from said hardened mercenary.  Fine.

Chapter Text

The sound of their feet on the steps was gratingly loud in the silence of the ruin, Eli once again longing for the freedom of no boots.  Once around the corner the light from the entrance was all but gone and there was no sound save the dry scrape of leather on stone and occasional echoing drip from somewhere within the walls.  The staircase itself was not long, turning back on itself over two flat landings before Cassandra pressed herself to the right hand wall that ended in what was clearly a larger area, lit dimly by the ghostly light of the veilfire in Solas’ hand.  Eli watched, holding her breath as she peered around the corner swiftly before coming back.

“I can see little, although there seems to be a source of light in there I cannot trace.”

“What sort of light, Seeker?” Solas asked quietly.

“Greenish.  It may possibly have been moving.”

“We must be wary, then.  There may be more spirits here.”

“Some of us had probably assumed that to be the case, yes.” Mihris muttered, rolling her eyes when Eli levelled an unimpressed look at her.

At Cassandra’s nod, they emerged into the larger hall, Solas lifting the torch high to illuminate as much as he could.  It was a strange light, Eli noticed, something shifting in it beyond the dancing flames like it was showing things that were no longer there.  As it flickered, the torn brown remnants of the rug they stepped on flashed into deeper colours for less time than it took to blink.  Other moments the stones on the floor seemed to be lit by a normal yellow flame rather than the blue.  It was rather distracting and she brought her head back up from the floor to peer into the gloom before she missed something.

They were at the back of a large hall, standing on what seemed to be a landing with two balconies on either side looking over a small drop.  She couldn’t tell how many wide, shallow steps there were, but the veilfire lit far enough she could tell it wasn’t more than a few feet down.  There were large chunks of rock littering the floor of the main area and she tried to distract herself from thinking about how they must have fallen from the ceiling by trying to work out how she could see them, given that the veilfire light gave out near the steps.  She realised it was because of the lights Cassandra had described.  There were three, two behind these hewn shapes of rock and one which pulsed behind the rail of the balcony on the opposite side to them, shifting slightly.  Cassandra held up her hand and they halted, watching as this closest light moved gently upwards.

First there was a ghostly tendril that shifted into a rough shape of a hand, reaching over the balcony like it was pulling itself up.  Following it was a head, the outline of shoulders.  In the flickering light of the veilfire, Eli caught brief flashes of eyes in shifting colours, pale skin blossoming into dark, bleaching into pale again and smudges of colour as whatever was left of this spirit fed like a parasite on what was left of itself, what was left of the impressions in this room.  It hung in the air, clearly observing them, its hands resting easily either side of it.  From the waist down the green coalescence of fade energy that made up its body was in tatters, not enough left to make legs.

Very carefully, Eli pressed her hand to Cassandra’s arm and stepped slowly and calmly up beside her, putting her staff into Cassandra’s slightly reluctant armoured hand.

“Herald?” Cassandra inquired in a whisper.

“Just give me a moment.”

“Be careful, Ellana.  This spirit is very old.”

“I know, Solas.  But I have to try, don’t I?”

“If it cannot be reasoned with…”

“This isn’t my first ruin, I’ve done this before.”

“And how exactly did those go?” Varric asked from behind her.

“Some went well, others didn’t.” she replied, stepping gracefully forward again and allowing her arms to fall to her sides, mimicking the spirit.  It bobbed, slightly fretfully and she stopped coming forwards, beginning to croon to it softly.  There was an old lullaby she had used before on such creatures and she began to sing it gently now, taking a few more steps forward.  Every time it bobbed or seemed agitated she would stop and wait before beginning to move again, until she was in the centre of the raised area, the steps down to the rest of the hall close to her left.  The spirit shivered as she came to a halt again and she heard Cassandra curse under her breath at the same time as, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the carpet just to her left raise up, undulating in the air until it stood taller than her, the creature’s stooped and rounded shoulders holding strong arms that, for now, were hanging loosely at its sides.  She had miscalculated.  Or at least she had been wrong.  Sometimes there was a chance to bring a wraith back from violence, but if the area was also infested with shades, that chance was gone.

The shade beside her rattled with an impression of breath, close enough the smell of decay and rust wafted wetly over her cheek.  She kept very still, trusting that her companions would give her whatever warning that she needed.

Her waiting ears caught the first half of Mihris’ name as Solas hissed it in warning before a brilliant light flashed across her eyes, followed by a crack of thunder loud enough to bring her hands instinctively to her ears.  A bolt of lightning as thick as her torso speared into the shade beside her, only to ricochet off its body and slam into the ceiling.  Eli was dizzied by the suddenness of it, her ears ringing and she barely had time to notice the bits of grit falling on her from above before there was a sickening crack of rock and something slammed into the side of her at speed, sending them skidding onto the floor.  The stones shook underneath her as something heavy and almost certainly fatal fell where she had been standing and she flinched, opening her eyes at the same time as her body realised whatever was on top of her was warm.

That moment extended, shock warming every nerve in her body as she realized that Solas was on top of her, having most likely just saved her life.  Every point of their bodies touched, from their feet to the soft press of his nose to hers and the unfamiliarity of it sent a thrill through her so strong she shuddered.  She knew her eyes were wide looking at his and she saw the same shock on his face, his eyes darting down to her mouth and back again.  Gods but they were close enough she could almost feel the softness of his lips on hers.  As her face heated, she saw an answering colour on his cheeks and the thrill began to turn the corners of her mouth up in what would have been a delighted smile had they both not simultaneously remembered that they were, in fact, in the middle of a fight.

With a dexterity that surprised her, Solas threw his weight to one side, rolling them towards the balustrade of the balcony and swiftly bringing them up behind it, sheltered.  Before Eli could get her bearings, his hand gently squeezed her upper arm to make her look at him, blush fading as concern clearly took over.

“Are you injured?”

She did a quick check, hearing Varric’s shout of triumph alongside the moan of the shade.

“I don’t think so.  You?”

“Nothing serious.”

They both shifted to crouch lightly on their toes, peeking over the balustrade that separated them from their comrades.  Cassandra was in the thick of it but couldn’t keep the wraiths, now all called from their hiding places, off Varric and Mihris, who were trying to bat away the bolts and help Cassandra all in one.  Another shade had joined the first and was beginning to turn towards them.  Eli scanned the floor for her staff and saw it where Cassandra had clearly flung it to the floor, luckily within reach of the similarly abandoned veilfire torch, still burning.

“I will cover you.” Solas reassured her.

“Ok.  Ready?”

“Go.”

Eli vaulted over the balustrade, yelling Varric’s name.  Andruil bless that dwarf with many fat halla, but he immediately shimmied over and hooked her staff under his foot, flicking it towards her so she had barely made the stairs before grabbing it, rolling to avoid a swing from a shade caught short by ice that bit into its blubbering flesh bitterly enough to make it scream.  She used the opportunity to bring her staff down hard on the arm that would have struck her, shattering it, before deftly using the momentum to swing the staff back around and hurl a bolt of flames into its face.

Leaping back to join the others, she felt the caress of Solas’ barrier fall over her, a shimmer of blue sweeping over her vision.  When she looked over he had turned away, but she had just enough time before turning to the fight to feel an echo of the thrill in her chest.  He had blushed.  Her mysterious, grouchy, book-loving, Dalish-hating Rift-mage had actually blushed.

Feeling the grin spread inexplicably over her face, she shook her head at herself and concentrated.  These old spirits were just as thin as the ones above - strange for a ruin so ancient.  Usually age added layers to a spirit if it stayed in the same place, the same old impressions bolstering it in its madness as it went around in circles until someone came to disturb it.  As she trotted down the steps with Varric in search of the last of the wraiths, however, she felt something tug at her left hand.  It was a mix between a beckoning and a warming, something in tune with the anchor, but in a different way than the rifts.  They felt like wounds, like they were pulling at the lines of the scar with a feeling like when she and the other children had used their fingers to try and pull their mouths open as far as they would go.  This was different - a soothing, buzzing ache more akin to when Eli had persuaded the young warriors training in healing to massage her shoulders.  It was not unpleasant.  It also, if it had anything to do with these artefacts Solas and Mihris were looking for, might account for the strangeness of the spirits.

Cassandra’s order to hold and wait once the last wraith had been sent back to the Fade was not a bad one.  Often there would be spirits in these places that would lie in waiting, biding their time until their prey had spent themselves on lesser spirits before pouncing.  It seemed, however, as they all stood there panting in the dark, that these spirits were all that were left.

“I sense no more spirits here.  Solas?”

“I agree, Seeker.  I believe that was all of them.”

Eli agreed, now more than intrigued by this new feeling.  She rested her staff on the floor and sent a little of her magic to the tip, lighting the area around them softly in absence of the veilfire.  She scanned the room idly, not realising she was looking for the source of the feeling until she saw it.  There was no mistaking it - it drew her to it.  She barely heard Cassandra ask Varric to bring the veilfire and Varric’s grumbling reply, instead stepping delicately over the fallen ceiling and closer to the back of the room.  The artefact was larger than she thought it would be, it’s pedestal bringing it almost to her chest.  She also couldn’t quite tell what shape it was, the myriad of spheres and hard lines, curves and jagged points a mess her eyes couldn’t begin to untangle.  Almost as if it had not been made with the physical rules of this world in mind.  Perhaps that made sense for an artefact that intereacted so closely with the Fade.  She knelt in front of it, the mirrored surface stubbornly not reflecting her image even though the light from the distant veilfire seemed to sink in everywhere it touched.

“It called to you, did it not?”

Solas’ voice was quiet enough behind her he managed not to startle her.  She nodded.

“Did you know it would?”

There was a pause from behind her before he huffed slightly in apparent amusement.

“No.  Although perhaps I should have done.”

“Can you tell if it’s working?”

This time the huff was more of a chuckle, dark and rich by her right shoulder.

“I think that judging by the way you are entranced, we can safely say its power has not abandoned it entirely.”

She shook her head at the laughter in his voice, suddenly feeling a little foolish.  There was mirth dancing in his eyes, but he shook his head kindly at her bashful glance at him.  “Shall I teach you how to use it?”

She nodded and he began talking softly.  As always with these things, he wanted to rush, telling her to do things without telling her precisely why.  She had never been particularly good at that and, as they took their time over figuring the artefact out, she realized he didn’t actually mind.  Initially she thought that he did, as there would be the odd sigh of frustration through his nose when she interrupted him or asked him to clarify.  As they continued, however, she began to notice how the answers came easier the more she forced him to give them, the shine of pride in his face when she understood him and made her own conclusions, even the slight anticipation when he began to make a point and hesitated, waiting for her to question.  Perhaps he wasn’t frustrated at her lack of understanding.  Perhaps, in fact, he was just out of practice.

When the artefact finally pulsed into life, humming slightly and emitting dancing pinpricks of light, the resulting rush of power through her hand made her gasp at the sensation, falling backwards slightly into where Solas’ chest was nearly flush against her back.  The anchor had always felt more like progressive pins and needles, but this had a warmth that was not helped whatsoever by the still unexpected solidity of his body behind hers.  She pulled away a little with the sinking realisation that she was probably blushing again.  Luckily, she didn’t have to look back and see if he’d noticed, because Cassandra had come up to them, arms crossed and not looking at them.  Eli wondered if she was trying to be surreptitious and the thought made her smile.

“Is it working?” The woman asked quietly.

“Yes,” Solas answered, “I can feel the wards strengthening around the area.”

“Good.  I thought you should know,” Cassandra continued, her voice becoming even quieter.  “That your Dalish friend barely glanced at this artefact before she began searching elsewhere.”

“So?” Eli asked, “Solas and I clearly were working on it ourselves.”

“And yet that did not stop her upstairs with the lantern.  Nor did it matter when she first turned away from the artefact down here, which was before either of you reached it.”

Eli had been prepared to leap to Mihris’ defence, but her misgivings from outside the ruin came back to her.  She stood from where they had been crouching, looking over to where the young woman was busy rummaging through some nearby boxes and rotten cloth.  Varric was a little further away, holding the torch with the veilfire aloft but watching Mihris as well.

“I think we have it working, Mihris.” She called, hoping against hope they were wrong and Mihris was just enthusiastic about history.  Mihris’ barely visible flinch, clearly startled by Eli’s voice, did not bode well.  She saw Varric’s eyes narrow.

“Well,” Mihris began, not pausing in her search.  “That will prove useful.”

Her voice was artificially cheery, made more suspicious by her little cry of delight as she clearly found something and even more so when she shoved it into her armour where they couldn’t see it.  She coughed once afterwards and Eli’s heart sank.  “And it seems the Ancestors have left something here for me, as well.”

She turned, smiling at them all.  “I believe our business is concluded, is it not?  Go in peace, strangers.”

She went to leave and Eli saw Varric shift from one foot to the other, looking pointedly at her.  Dread Wolf’s tears but she hoped this didn’t go pear-shaped.

“Mihris.”

The young woman was braced when she turned, taking a step backwards so that she could see Varric and be slightly closer to the exit.  The room was filled with tension all of a sudden.  To Eli’s surprise, Solas stepped up beside her and gave her a strange look before turning to Mihris, a look on his face that reminded her of the elders in the Arlathvhen.

“Da’len, ma halani.”

Mihris narrowed her eyes at him.  “Ma glandival.  Vir enasalin.”

Pain flickered across her face before the rage returned.

“You would ask that of me, flat-ear?” she spat, shooting a pointed look at Eli as she swore at him, daring her to care.  Eli stayed quiet.  “You think that your good will means anything to me?  That I have any kind of belief in you?  You think that just because you have ripped knowledge from the Fade that you are any closer to our people than I am?  You are nothing - a plunderer who thinks he understands that which he cannot.  I have learnt the old ways my entire life, your trifling foolishness does not impress me.  I would tell you not to dare call me ‘dal’len’ again, but truly I care so little for what you think you may call me what you like.”

“That’s enough, Mihris.” Eli warned, stepping forward.  “And before you accuse me of taking his side, have a care with your hands.”

Mihris faltered and looked down to where twin crackles of electricity were playing over her fingers.  Her eyes widened and Eli could tell that her Keeper had at least given her the same warnings Ista had given her in her youth.  She let her calm down, watching her as she closed her eyes and took a few breaths.  It was a testament to Mihris’ Keeper’s teachings that she was prepared to do so after being ready to fight near strangers not moments before.  There were dangers more pressing than strangers with weapons when one was a mage.  In the moment of calm, Solas turned from where he had come forward and, although she kept her face very neutral, the depth of sadness on his face rocked Eli to the bottom of her ribcage.  She had not expected him to be sad.  It was where she had been reading him wrong, she suddenly realized.  She thought that his anger came from disdain and perhaps part of it did, but that did not change the fact that they had hurt him.  Somewhere in his past, the Dalish had hurt him somehow.  It did not excuse his views as far as she was concerned, but it might go some way to explaining them.

Mihris was recovering and Eli brought herself away from her realization to come forward, gentleness in her face.  Mihris’ expression was bordering on the desperate now.

“Ma’na.  Ma halani,” Eli repeated, making sure Mihris knew Eli was asking for help herself, just them now.  “There a few in this world I can trust without my own people turning against me.”

Her voice was soft, but Mihris still went to deny it before stopping herself, her shoulders drooping with the weight of whatever burden she carried.  Eli came even closer, taking Mihris’ face in her hands and turning it to her, raising her chin like all Keepers had done to their charges at one or time another.  They were the People.  “Have I not proved myself?  I am of your blood.  I might be able to use what you’ve found.”   

Mihris drew in a breath like she was going to weep, but Eli wondered if she could any more.

“I…You may be right.  You almost certainly are.” she said, something like hatred in the way her throat closed around her words.  Eli knew it was not directed at her and shifted her thumbs to lift the young woman’s head again.  They were the People.  Mihris locked eyes with her and Eli felt her breathe, felt her recognise the gesture and what it meant.  When she pulled away to put a hand into her armour there was a small, proud smile on her face.  “Here, take it.”

It was an amulet of some sort, a large crystal set into metal tarnished by age with a thick chain to keep it around the neck.  Eli closed her fingers around it and smiled.

“Where will you go?”

Mihris shook her head.

“I don’t know.  I thought to find another Clan to take me in, but I don’t know who would.  After everything that happened in the Dales, can I even claim to be one of them, now?”

“Perhaps a Clan who does not use words like ‘knife-ear’ might have an open enough mind to hear your story?” Eli asked, wondering if she’d been planning this ever since she had heard Mihris was Clanless.  “I also hear that Clan Lavellan is missing a First, which means, of course, that they will have raised another to the station and shall have space for a mage.”

Mihris looked at her and it took a moment for the hope to show in her eyes, something poignantly childlike in her sudden earnestness as she stepped closer again.

“I was the healer for my Clan before it all.  A good one, so the Keeper said.”

“No Clan is stupid enough to turn away a healer.  They’re far, but there are some Inquisition soldiers heading over there to help with a situation in Wycome.  You can probably meet up with them on the Highway if you’re quick?”

“And I am supposed to just go up to a bunch of armoured shemlen…”

“No, of course not.  Here, take this.”

She tore a page from her notebook and hastily scribbled a note on it.  Then she took the bracelet she had woven for herself from her wrist and tied it around the rolled parchment before handing it over.  “Have it in your hand as you approach and tell them the Herald has sent you.”

“You don’t like being called Herald, do you?”

“Only when it can help me help a friend.”

Mihris kept their hands clasped as Eli handed the paper over, squeezing.

“Ma serannas, lethallan. May you go with Mythal’s blessing.”

“And you.”

Mihris hesitated for a second, then pitched forward and wrapped her arms briefly but firmly around Eli before stepping away.  She nodded at Varric and Cassandra before she left and then was gone in the gloom.

“Well,” Varric said in the silence that followed the last of her footsteps.  “That could have gone worse.”

“Are you sure you wish to inflict her on your Clan, Herald?” Cassandra asked.  “She was barely hanging on to her control.”

Eli let out a harsh laugh.

“That was not a mage barely hanging on, Cassandra.  She has a long way to go before she is past saving.  Plus, my Keeper is not one to be swayed by such a challenge.  Trust me, she is far scarier than any templar when she believes she is being disrespected.  Speaking of which…”

She leant her staff against one of the boulders and trod lightly over to where Solas was observing the artefact.  He looked up when she tapped his shoulder.  “This was found where you led us, Solas.  You should have it.”

He looked a little taken aback, then opened his hand to let her place the amulet in his palm. She watched his eyes close as he curled his fingers around it, a small smile gracing his mouth.

“Ah.  It was perhaps good she did not take this for herself.  I would not have liked to contemplate how she might have used it.”

“What do you mean?”

His mouth twitched up in the teasing smile she was beginning to associate with him showing her something he thought she’d enjoy.  True enough, he drew a little closer and lifted the amulet up to where she could see it. 

“Watch closely.” he whispered, and then sent a small pulse of his magic through the crystal.  It immediately flared to life and Eli could see something moving in the depths of it.

“What in Andraste’s name is that?” Varric asked, coming over with the veilfire.

“Is it dangerous?” Cassandra added, peering over Eli’s shoulder.  Solas hummed and Eli wondered if he was beginning to enjoy the attention.

“On the contrary.  Amulets like these are quite rare, but could prove useful to all of us.  It contains a small piece of a spirit, who will have one point or another willingly decided to reside within this crystal.  They were a way to preserve the skills and knowledge of the wearer.  With these being so old it is likely that only fragments of this knowledge remain, but if we free the spirits to return to the Fade, they are likely to impart that knowledge onto us as instinct.”

“What sort of knowledge?” Eli asked, thoroughly intrigued.

“That depends entirely on what their original owners’ area of expertise was.  This one was clearly…well, most likely they were a mage.  One who had great knowledge of spirits, as it happens.”

“So one must be a mage for these to be effective?” Cassandra asked, ever practical.

“Not at all.  If we found one that belonged to a great warrior, for example, it is likely that it could impart its knowledge to you.  One would need a mage to ascertain the nature of the spirit, but past that, anyone could benefit.”

“This one seems almost made for you, though, doesn’t it.” Eli said, smiling at him.  He smiled back.

“Yes.”

“Then you must use it.  Should we step back?”

“Probably.”

They did so, far enough that Varric started jokingly asking if they should hide behind something.  Then they watched as Solas placed the amulet gently on the floor and raised his staff a little above it.  With a quick stab downwards the amulet smashed, the light lifting from it and rising up into Solas’ waiting hand, absorbing into the flesh of his palm until it disappeared with a rush.  He took a long breath, some unnatural light glinting in his eyes for a second.  Then it was done.

“You still you, Chuckles?”

“Yes, Varric.  This is not a whole spirit.  It is not enough to possess anyone.”

“Surely that would have been a better question to ask before he did it?”

“Then why did you not ask him yourself, Seeker?”

They started bickered again and the sound was almost comforting.  Eli cast a quick questioning look at Solas, but he merely smiled back, something serene and solid in his gaze.  She could barely reconcile this Solas with the one who had snapped at her in white-faced rage not hours ago.

They searched the room thoroughly, Eli insisting (much to Varric’s amusement) that they take the large mosaic piece with them.  Cassandra seemed not to mind, being as intrigued by the grotesque patterns on it as Eli was herself.  There were some trinkets to be found, including the schematic for an old rune the veilfire illuminated.  Eli had heard of those with the skill to create runes and Cassandra was quick to say that the Inquisition would try to find one.  Solas took his own notes and then sketched it in her notebook for her whilst she and the others scoured the rest of the room.

Once they were certain they had taken all of value, Eli sent a quick prayer to Falon’Din for peace to return to this place and then they began to climb the stairs.  Despite her interest in her people’s history, it was lovely to get back into the open air and dust herself off and they decided to take a slightly less precipitous path back down now they weren’t responding to a call for help.

She was so glad to be out in the open she wasn’t listening the way that she should be, caught up in laughing at Varric’s attempt to name the elven artefacts once Solas had told them he no longer knew what they would be called.  She should have noted that the calls of the birds that she could hear were not for mating but for alarm, echoed in calls further away that could not have been caused by their party.  Then there was a strange whistling sound and something punched her hard in the chest, forcing her backwards into Cassandra, who staggered back but kept her feet.  Pain sharper than a bruise spread through her body and she looked down to see an arrow protruding from the left side of her coat, just above her breast.  She coughed and blood spattered from her mouth over her chest, more blood beginning to soak her shirt.  She had just enough time to hear Varric yell amongst more whistles in the air before her knees gave way.  As she fell, time slowing strangely, the image of the red bleeding out into the white seemed to take over her vision, the blood spilling further and further until the world went black with it.  She didn’t feel her knees hit the floor.

Chapter Text

There was something coming for her.  It pulsed with light, far away but moving closer.  It was calling her name. 

She couldn’t see anything solid.  There were clouds of grey and shadows of thick trunks around her, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t turn.

She wasn’t alone.

Somewhere in the thick of the trees, a shadow stirred.  Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t made of light like the other, but of darkness and hidden places. These were not the benign shadows that flitted under trees of a summer evening.  These were the dark, cold corners between hacked off chunks of fallen ruins, the damp darkness underneath the aravels where she’d feared monsters dwelled when she was a child.  Images of these things ebbed and flowed in front of her mind as whatever it was shifted towards the advancing light.  A wolf howled soft and forlorn somewhere far from where she hung, but the clouds in front of her eyes shifted like it was calling them.

Then the light was upon her and it had arms that lifted, beckoning her forward and into its embrace.  It spoke with no mouth, its body warm and soft, a breath of heat blossoming on the left side of her chest, almost hot enough to burn.  The wolf howled again, long and slow, but the light called her name and she felt it pulling at the very core of her, ripping her away from this place that didn’t want to let her go.  Again and again it called.  The heat at her chest flared into pain and she felt her body arch, eyes and mouth open in a gasp of sensation that curled her toes and blinded her with light…

…only to fade into sunlight catching on pale crags of rock, her feet almost losing footing on the path.  She staggered to one side, not quite in control of her body, her mind processing what was happening too fast for it to fully reach her subconscious.  She had been shot.  The light was a spirit and she needed to move because it couldn’t survive long outside of the task Solas had set it.  The memory of Varric’s chest being slashed open by a blade seconds after being brought up flashed through her memory, but her body was sluggish and recovering, pain in her chest making it hard to breathe.  She still wasn’t alone.

Something that wasn’t her own consciousness brought her head up in time to see the second arrow, and her arm came up to ward it off.  Like a tear in cloth, the spirit tore itself away from her down her arm and she watched it lose its cohesion, spreading like a wall in front of her to knock away the arrow, another from beside it, a third that followed.  By this time she was shaking her own head to clear it, mind losing the fog and the memory that went with it.  She dropped belly down on the ground, blindly grabbing her fallen staff and taking advantage of the protection to crawl behind the nearest rock and take a moment to breathe.

“Lavellan!” Cassandra yelled from below.  “Herald!”

“Firefly talk to me!”

Eli tried to shout back, but her breath caught painfully where the arrow had pierced her ribs and she had to try twice more before she could call out loud enough for them to hear.  She looked down at her chest, but there was no arrow.  Blood made her shirt stick to her skin, cold and clammy, but she knew without looking that the wound had closed.  Completely closed, unlike what she had seen earlier.  That was new.  Unbidden, the flash of unnatural light in Solas’ eyes after he’d smashed the amulet and the calm satisfaction in his expression came back to her.  The spirit had stayed, been more powerful somehow.

She didn’t quite know how to feel about it so decided not to, peeking around the boulder to see the lay of the land.  It was more mercenaries, assumedly coming to avenge their fallen companions.  She took a moment to wonder whether it had been these archers who had loosed their arrows into the backs of unarmed farmers and let the sneer of anger on her face fuel the fire that travelled down her corded arms to her staff.  The tip of it lit, not with soft light but with rich red, flashing pulses of fire.  She waited one more moment until she heard Cassandra let out a yell that was surely going to draw the attention of anyone within distance, then she rolled out and let loose the flames on them all.

Through the haze of battle and roar of the fire from her hands she started to hear cries of alarm from the mercenaries.  They had clearly assumed that Solas was the only mage and another  making fire leap from the ground at their feet sent the archers into panic.  From her position high on the rise, Eli could see the lie of the battlefield, however, and their chances were not necessarily good.  The mercenaries had come back in force and there was a large man, massive in his armour, stepping with purpose towards Cassandra with a hammer in his hand that probably weighed more than Eli herself.  She called out a warning, trying desperately to keep the archers busy and watching as Varric tried to harry the mercenaries flanking Cassandra’s side, Solas having to dodge and weave between trees as men and women with hard eyes and sharp blades came to stop the torrent of ice flowing from his staff.

The behemoth shemlen got within range of his hammer and went to lift it, hefting it upwards ready to strike.  The lightning bolt hit his armour directly in the back and he froze, his suddenly shaking hands dropping the hammer behind him.  There was a yell of rage from the other side of the group, back towards the road and Eli’s heart soared into a cry of fierce joy as she turned back to the archers.  Mihris had not just made it past the advancing mercenaries, but she’d come back for them.

It proved enough to turn the tide.  A third mage, raining lightning itself down upon them, mixed with ice that froze them to the ground unable to escape the flames - this was more than any company had bargained for.  Cassandra let out a shout of triumph as the archers turned tail and any man that wasn’t engaged with her began to move backwards.  The behemoth, now recovered, started yelling orders, but was stopped short by ice crawling up into his helmet and a bolt that took him through the visor.  He staggered backwards into a number of his colleagues, who dropped their own weapons and began to drag him backwards.  Eli knew they could pick them off now, vulnerable as they were, saw the grimace of rage on Mihris’ face as she advanced, grim determination in the set of Cassandra’s shoulders.  She called a halt.

Mihris and Solas looked up at her immediately, although both let their staffs hang at their sides.  Varric stood his ground beside her and nodded.  If they killed them all now, they would never find where they retreated to.  These men and women would leave tracks, a trail her people could follow back to wherever they hid.  There they could be found, possibly even reasoned with.  She took a breath as she remembered the farmers again.  Most of these people probably had families at home, were doing what they could for the coin.  She could be merciful.  She knew that her actions were informing the world what kind of organisation the Inquisition was.  She couldn’t stop it being associated with the Chantry, but she could make it more than a group of zealots massacring any in their path.

The five of them kept a close eye on the retreating mercenaries as they collected in the dell, Eli freely throwing her arms around Mihris and smiling warmly at her.  Mihris smiled back, nodding.  She would be alright, Eli realised.  Keeper Ista would set her right.  She’d be ok.

“We should tell the scouts we need them to track.  The trail will not stay fresh for long.” Cassandra warned as she came up, wiping her sword on the nearby grass before sheathing it.

“Why not track them yourselves?” Mihris asked.  Cassandra answered before Eli could.

“We are not about to risk the Herald unless we must.  Tracking is something our scouts can do.”

Eli shrugged at Mihris’ questioning gaze, uncomfortable.

“I’ll go now, meet you at the arch.  Want me to introduce you, Crackle?”

Eli had to stifle a smile as she watched Mihris realize Varric was talking to her.  Then she nodded.

“I think you should go with him, Mihris.  Once the scout knows who you are he can direct you to other members of the Inquisition.  They’ll get to the Highway safely.”

“I will go instead.” Cassandra interrupted.  “I wish to speak to them about protecting the road here.”

Mihris still looked a little unsure, but Varric gave her a cheery wave as she left and she smiled weakly back, following Cassandra.  Eli watched them go for a moment before turning to Solas, who was sitting on a large rock wiping blood off his foot.

“That spirit, Solas.”

He looked up at her and then nodded slightly.

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t do that before.”

“No.”

This time, his apparent desire not to elaborate wasn’t enough.

“Did the amulet do that?”

“The amulet gave me the power to enhance the spell, yes.”

“How?”

“Does it matter?  Do you need further aid?”

“No, thank you, I’ll be fine until we get to camp.  And I’m just curious.”

“As someone who does not consort with spirits on the battlefield, I doubt it would make much sense to you.”

That rankled, coming seemingly out of nowhere as it did.

“Try me.  I think I grasped the theories of the artefact in the ruin quite well, what’s wrong with this?”

What was wrong had nothing to do with Eli at all, she realized as Solas gave Mihris’ back a brief glance before looking back to her and shaking his head.  Once she figured out he wasn’t going to answer she moved closer to him, sitting down just when he was about to stand.  He paused.  “You said you were glad that she hadn’t got the amulet for herself, that she would have used it badly.  What were you afraid of?”

“I was not afraid.  What she does with her magic is no concern of mine, although it is always disappointing to see one’s suspicions constantly confirmed.”

“What suspicions?  Of whom?”

He looked over at her, a short frustrated sigh leaving his mouth.  He paused again and something in her gut told her that he was busy deciding whether to fight with her or not.

“The Dalish see spirits in a very simplistic way, although they would say their views are vastly superior to shemlen.  Regardless, it is just as wrong.  Any Dalish with the power to influence a spirit in this way is likely to misuse it.”

Clearly he’d made his choice.

“Any Dalish?  I realize we might be difficult to tell apart for those who think so little of our customs, but I assume you of all people consider yourself able to.”

His warning look brushed off her like water on waxed leather and she knew the expression on her face was bordering on the insolent.

“I do not know why you wish to have this conversation.”

“Because I object to having the actions of one woman affect your opinion of me.  Why does her foolishness mean you now won’t tell me anything?”

“My attitude to you has nothing to do with her.”

“Liar.”

She’d shocked him and there was something in her ability to provoke his anger that thrilled  in her almost as deeply as when she’d realised his body was pressed against hers earlier.

“That is not an idle insult.”

“Neither is what you are doing, Solas.  You’re just assuming we are all the same.”

He stood and she followed, unwilling to let this go and knowing it was unwise before she opened her mouth.  “Solas, I know they hurt you.”

He went very still, emotion wiping from his face.  Gods but he was tall when he didn’t stoop.  Alarm bells started pealing at the back of her mind, but she ignored them.  “I saw you, in the ruin.  The way she spoke to you?  I know you said you’d come across Dalish before and that the meeting didn’t go the way you wanted, I can see how they might have…”

His chuckle interrupted her, nothing of mirth in it.  In fact it sent shivers down her spine to hear it.  His voice when it came was quiet, but there was a tremor of anger and bitterness in it that almost frightened her.

“Ah, I see.  You have seen pain in me and now all my opinions must surely be due to that pain, nothing more.”

“Solas, that’s not what I said…”

“No, truly.  I have no control over my emotions, they surely cloud every genuine observation I have ever made to twist my conclusions  I am, in fact, clearly incapable of making clear judgements on this issue.”

“That is not what I said.”

“Is it not?” he asked, turning to her, his body and voice tightly controlled in his anger.  “Do you not think that I have tried to give the Dalish their chance?  I have seen them for what they are and this child we picked up today has only reassured me of my conclusions.  I was a fool for even trying.”

“Solas,” Eli tried again, something hard suddenly in her throat as she remembered him attempting to speak with Mihris, looking back at her like she’d persuaded him to.  “All I’m asking is that you try and see that there are some of us who are worthy of your attention, more than just the idiotic children you seem to have decided we are.”

His eyes were harsh and angry as he answered.

“I have seen nothing to convince me otherwise.”

Something dropped in her stomach and she suddenly realised what this whole conversation had been about, why she’d started it in the first place.  She knew the hurt showed on her face because she heard Varric tut from beside them and Solas frowned slightly, clearly a little confused.  She wasn’t about to let him see it for longer than she had to.

“Fine.” She said, keeping her voice as calm as she could.  She was good at this when she needed to be.  “I will stop wasting your time with my presence then.”

She turned and walked away, trying desperately to focus on calmly putting her staff away, clearing up, preparing to leave.  Still, she couldn’t help but hear Varric’s low voice floating over from where she’d left them both.

“Well, Chuckles, that didn’t go particularly well.”

“If I want your advice, Stonechild, I will ask for it.”

“Oh, so that’s the way you wanted it to go?  Her walking off after you’d hurt her feelings - that was the idea, was it?”

She didn’t hear Solas reply and decided she wasn’t about to wait around to listen, so she signalled to them that they were leaving and stepped onto the path, half-heartedly keeping an eye out for any further attack.  In a sudden whim she decided that today was the day she was making a statement about shoes, plonking herself on the hard ground to pull off the awful leather shemlen boots and socks.  Still sitting, she spread her toes out on the ground and even the rough earth and stones of the path felt blissful.  Levering up again, she let the sensation distract her for a few moments, if only a few.

On one hand she hated how she had apparently decided that his good opinion of her was worth her making excuses for her people.  On the other, she knew she had disagreed with a good few of her people in her time, especially at the last Arlathvhen, but in the face of his sweeping disdain she suddenly wanted to defend ideologies she had always argued against.  She hated that he seemed to have her caught in the middle.  She hated worst of all that he seemed to neither know that was what he was doing or care that he was doing it.  She had managed to forget how aloof he had seemed in her first few days of knowing him, how sometimes she would catch him watching the people at Haven seeming so very far away from them all.  It was all the more frustrating because she respected him, admired his magical talents and was entranced by the way he thought through problems, applied whatever learning he had come by to any challenge they encountered.  That he had done so out of nothing was something she felt such admiration for, coming from where she did.  The Dalish had nothing, had so very little to work with.  To see someone take even less and turn it into his level of talent was nothing short of miraculous and she wanted it to give her hope for her people.  Perhaps that was why it hurt so much when his apparent wisdom gave him only disdain for everything that she herself wanted to save. 

Every time she thought they were beginning to understand each other, there would be something to derail them.  She could only try so many times.  Perhaps it had been the wrong time to bring up the Dalish hurting him, when he was already angry.  Her chest hurt.  She was pretty damn sure it wasn’t just the residual bruise from the arrow.

Their short trip back to the stone archway that marked the crossroads was uneventful.  She kept out in front, not wanting to talk to Solas and not really wanting Varric giving her sympathetic eyes either.  She could barely understand herself, let alone trying to make someone else do so.  Cassandra was speaking to a small group of recruits when they arrived, Eli enquiring just enough to find out that they had taken Mihris under strict instruction to treat her with respect to join the main Inquisition scout party heading to Wycome.  They waited for a while for Cassandra to finish, Eli munching on an apple Varric had handed to her as she watched how Cassandra dealt with them.  There had been a move recently towards Eli ordering around these scouts herself and she wasn’t afraid to openly soak up advice and experience like a sponge when she was around people like Cassandra or Bull.  Her training for leadership had been somewhat different and she still wasn’t entirely sure how to apply it to this.  After Cassandra was finished, they headed into the crossroads, ambling along the main path until Varric spotted a merchant and hauled their pack onto his back, winking at them and moving off to where the man stood (in surprisingly good clothes considering he was supposedly a ‘refugee’).  Eli, still uncomfortable with all of the stares, kept walking until she started getting to the outskirts, idly hopping over a wall to wonder along the small allotments that the refugees were trying to set up for themselves. 

She felt someone come up behind her and, given that she couldn’t hear armour, assumed it to be Solas.  True enough, he fell into line with her as they walked along the brow of the hill, heading to the camp further up.

“I believe,” he began, sounding slightly unsure.  “That I owe you an apology.”

Eli suddenly felt very tired.

“Do you?”

“Yes.  I did not mean to imply that your presence was of any detriment to me.”

“Then what did you mean to imply?”

He grimaced slightly, not really able to hold her eye for long.

“I’m afraid implying anything was not on my mind.  I allowed my emotions to overcome my judgement of you and to get the better of me.  I spoke out of turn and from anger.  Forgive me.”

It startled her to hear that last, but he seemed sincere when she glanced over at him.  It surprised her that he could be so open, was so willing to put himself in this position to make amends.  He was a mix of extremes, this man, just when she thought she had the measure of him he’d turn a different way.  She was going to forgive him, she thought to herself drily, she had to admit that to herself.  Although he didn’t necessarily need to know, yet.

“Why did you get so angry?”

He shook his head, fingers tangling like he’d forgotten he was doing it.

“You…so often you think of things, say things - that I do not expect.  Your comment about the Dalish?  It took me by surprise.”

“I’m sorry for that.  It was the wrong time to bring it up.” She said, bumping her arm against his.  He again looked surprised, a wry smile blooming briefly on his lips.

“Like that, for example.  You are…unexpected.”

She grinned.

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He inclined his head to her briefly.  She suspected he knew he’d been forgiven.  She laughed a little.  “You’re actually quite a hot-head, aren’t you?”

“My childhood tutor would certainly agree with you.” He chuckled back, something youthful and vibrant in his expression.  She’d just decided it was slightly addicting when it faded.  “I was not expecting a situation where that would matter.”

“What do you mean?”

He stopped, leaning up against a nearby fence with his arms crossed.  The look he gave her made him suddenly seem older than she’d thought.  From one extreme to another.

“My judgement of people I meet often has little bearing.  Most of the time they do not care.”

“And when they do care?  When you hurt them?”

“It is very rare that I do so.”

“Really?”

He didn’t answer directly, just looked at her steadily, if gently.  It felt like he was asking a question and she found herself answering.  “It’s not as if I’ve never questioned my people’s methods  - we’re all so very different now, so disparate.  But it’s just - this whole situation is almost engineered to surround me with attacks on everything I’ve known as home my whole life.  Even Sera.  To have it from you too, when I…” she stumbled a little.  “…when I respect you so greatly, it can just feel like too much sometimes.  So I get defensive, or try and pick holes or find reasons for you hating us that don’t hurt so much.”

He was quiet beside her for a moment.  She didn’t want to look at him, so instead cast her gaze down the hill towards the settlement and the sky beyond.

“I would not wish to count myself amongst those you feel you must defend yourself against.” He finally said, softly.  “And it is not just that you care about my opinion of you that makes this situation unfamiliar.  I…I myself am not accustomed to caring if I hurt someone.”

Now she looked at him, something wary and very, very vulnerable in his eyes.  When there was the smallest flinch, a tightening of his eyes as he looked at her face, she saw it for what it was.  It still hurt, but better that there was something in her tattoos that pained him than it be something he judged her as less for.

“They did hurt you, didn’t they?”

He kept very still, even as she turned her body towards him.  He nodded, the tiniest of movements.

“I do not wish to speak of it.”

“I’m not asking you to speak of it, Solas.” She assured him, quickly but gently.  They were so close the rigid line of his crossed arms almost brushed her open coat.  “I wouldn’t ask that.  We don’t know each other that well and I know that you’ve often been alone, you’ve said so.  Spirits often know things without you needing to tell them, so I’m not demanding anything of you.”

“Save my acceptance that my feelings for the Dalish may inform my judgement of them?”

“Is that something you haven’t accepted?”

He genuinely seemed to consider the question.

“I have never thought of it that way.  Perhaps I should.”

She smiled, strangely grateful for the honesty of his answer.  “And, if it must be said - whilst I maintain that the Dalish are often wrong, I do not hate them.  Or you.”

“Well then, maybe we should try a truce.”

His interest was clearly piqued and she wondered if, like him, she had an expression of her own that meant she was about to suggest something to him he was pretty sure he was going to approve of.  “How about, you try and wait before jumping to sweeping conclusions about the Dalish and I will try and stop being overly defensive.  With full permission for the both of us to fight like wolves and pole cats if we really feel we want to.”

He was trying not to grin again and it was unfair that she found it arousing.

“Wolves and pole cats?”

“It’s an expression.”

“Is it?” He asked, but there was an amused resignation on his face and he was nodding, so she was pretty sure she was winning.  “I see your point.  I believe I can accept those terms.”

She smiled at him, her heart skipping slightly at the warmth in his voice.  Or perhaps it was the warmth from his body, which she realised seemed extremely close all of a sudden.  A thought occurred to her and if her voice came out lower than she initially meant it to she wasn’t complaining, especially when she felt his breath suck in slightly from her place in front of him when he heard it.

“I was meaning to thank you, by the way.”

“Thank me?”

That addictive little anticipating smirk was on his face again.

“Yes.  For saving my life.”

“On the hill?”

“Well yes, although I was thinking more in the ruin.  With the falling rock.”

He looked momentarily confused and she could tell the moment he remembered when his gaze grew heated, the memory of their bodies tangled on the crumbling remnants of the stone flooding fresh through Eli’s veins.  His tongue darted over his lips before he spoke again and Eli couldn’t look away from them.

“You are quite welcome.”

They were quiet for a moment, Eli allowing herself to revel in this company, in this moment of mutual attraction, of feeling like she was really with him for one of the few times in their acquaintance.  Then he moved, unfolding his arms and suddenly it was all a little much, her body almost swaying with the effort not to close the gap between their bodies, feel the press of her breasts against the thin cotton covering his chest.  So she swayed backwards instead, chuckling a little at them both as she stepped away.  To her great satisfaction, he looked far more unsure than she did and she could see him beginning to decide that he needed to say something sensible and stupid to make anything about this situation appropriate.  Appropriate, at least, to what he thought the Herald and her resident apostate Rift-mage should be, anyway. Why were intelligent men often so very foolish?

“Don’t think, just walk.” she interrupted before he had a chance to speak.  He stood fully, cocking his head at her in confusion.  “Don’t think, just walk.”

She hooked her fingers around his arm, briefly tugging his body to join hers in continuing their journey to camp.  He allowed her, the weight of his body comforting and promising under her hand for just a second before he moved with her, matching her strides.

“Don’t think, just walk?” He repeated.

“Exactly.” She answered, although she was quite sure he hadn’t intended to imply his agreement.  She quite enjoyed having the upper hand.  “There is so much to think about, Solas, it’ll weigh us down to think about it all the time.  Sometimes, of course, deliberation must be undertaken, but when you are able….”

She left it hanging, looking up at him and jogging him slightly with her shoulder in encouragement.  When he made that expression again, the addictive one, she realised that she probably adored it because it looked like he didn’t know whether to be exasperated or charmed.  Well, if he could keep her on an edge between two emotions, then it was only fair and equal that she place him in a similar predicament.

“Don’t think, just walk.” He finished, obedient and making sure she saw it.  This contrary element to his personality was a new if slightly worrying development, given what it did to very specific parts of Eli’s body.  Still, to his credit his smile turned slightly pensive like he was actually thinking about it.  “Very well.  Perhaps I will experiment with this advice.  For now.”

She beamed up at him, suddenly walking lighter on her toes than she had all day.

“For now.” She repeated, accepting it for the promise it was.  She looked down and saw their feet, now both uncovered, against the rich brown soil of the valley.  The soft earth gave way gently under their toes like it was welcoming them.  “For now.”